Citadel is a relic of the great Saladin, not so easily destroyed or misappropriated, it is 
known as Joseph’s Well, which is sunk in the solid rock to the depth of two hundred 
and eighty feet, and is forty-two feet in circumference. A winding gallery, which 
mules can ascend and descend, reaches to the water; this well renders the Citadel 
independent of the aqueduct from the Nile. 
It may he easily imagined how very fine the view of Cairo and the surrounding 
country must he from those accessible points of the Citadel which complete a panoramic 
survey, especially from the platform, where • the city is seen below the observer, with 
its thousand minarets and domes; and the valley of the Nile is commanded from 
the Great Pyramids and those of Saccara on the south, and towards the north, to 
its subsidence into the Delta. 
THE COFFEE-SHOP OF CAIRO. 
The character of the Oriental coffee-shop is not limited to Cairo. Throughout Syria, 
and wherever there are pipes, coffee, and Mussulmans, it is the resort of the idler. 
Cairo contains more than a thousand coffee-shops. They are generally small, open in 
front, sometimes with arched lattice-work. They have usually a low bench, covered 
with matting along the front except at the door, and there are similar low seats on 
two or three sides within, where those who occupy them are at once the observed and 
observers of all passers-by. Musicians frequent them, and the Story-teller is generally 
found there, who for hours together will secure the attention of an audience chiefly 
composed of tradesmen and the working classes. The hardy artisan, after his day’s 
labour, is a frequent visitoi’, and the proprietor is esteemed an important personage, to 
whom all show respect. He is observed here pouring out the beverage which is nowhere 
so productive of enjoyment as in the East. A large copper pot is always simmering 
over a charcoal fire, to be served hot; this, and the cups arranged near him, seem to 
constitute his whole stock in trade and furniture, for chairs are not required for those 
who sit cross-legged on the ground or a low seat. In the group, our Artist has intro¬ 
duced one of a frequent class of listeners, who is blind from that scourge of the Egyptians, 
ophthalmia; he resorts to the coffee-shop for the news of the day, or to listen to the 
story of some narrator. 
The visitors generally bring their own pipes and tobacco, but an intoxicating 
preparation of hemp is often smoked, and can be obtained in the low coffee-shops; the 
properties of this plant were known to Galen, and even mentioned by Herodotus as 
used by the Scythians to produce inebriating effects. When even taciturn Turks and 
Arabs become excited and boisterous in these coffee-shops, it is due chiefly to the 
intoxicating fumes of this preparation of hemp. 
Lane’s Modern Egyptians. 
